Corporatisation and Community Service Obligations: Are They Incompatible?

This article asks whether corporatisation is compatible with the notion of community service obligations (CSOs). Corporatisation provides only a minimal framework for the identification of social objectives as CSOs and their funding by government from budget. The community has certain expectations of utilities in relation to CSOs, which may be different from expectations held by governments. Models of corporatisation which have two shareholding ministers with competing objectives introduce a further potential source of conflict.
Historically, the characteristics of a CSO are ambiguous (IC 1991:81) and this presents difficulty in their costing and identification. Governments and corporatised entities have attempted to clarify the issues of definition, identification and costing. These and other issues such as transparency, budget funding, coverage, jurisdiction, public interest and community spirit are discussed in the context of corporatised government electricity utilities.